The restaurant and consumer products industries are making increased use of flexible bags to contain food products. These bags are easy to handle and require less storage and shipping space. The flexible bags can be easily loaded into dispensers for dispensation of the food product, thereby reducing handling of the food product.
Flexible-walled bottles have long been used to dispense fluids by squeezing. Such bottles have been usually made with resilient walls which tend to restore to their original shape after removal of deforming forces. As the ratio of inside air to liquid increases with bottle use, difficulties are encountered in attempting to completely empty the bottle in a timely manner. Solutions to these problems have included placement of the fluid in an inner bag which is sealed within a squeeze bottle. Examples of such structures have been disclosed by Streck in U.S. Pat. No. 4,865,224 and Uhlig in U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,434.
Although the above solutions decreased the time required to empty the squeeze bottle, new problems associated with premature bag collapse and with potential exit orifice blockage arose. Semi-rigid internal bag cartridges which lessen these problems and various supporting structures placed inside the bag are known, such as the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,156,300 issued to Spahni et al. Combinations of such internal bag elements with dispensing means are also available. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,036 to Bond a helical coil bag insert is coupled with a dispensing spout supported in the neck opening of a rigid external structure.
In addition, other combination devices have mated a protected dispensing orifice with a bag cutting and sealing means. An example of this approach is shown by Knorr in U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,550, wherein a first member having a throughbore therein is used in conjunction with a cutting means to seal adjacent portions of a bag wall together while piercing the bag wall for fluid release through the narrow passages cut therein.
Some prior art enfitments which are designed to penetrate a flexible bag protrude into the bag. The protruding portion of the enfitment interferes with piston or bag compression types of pumping. Also, the protruding device traps product that cannot be dispensed, thus, increasing waste of undispensed flowable material. These problems are increased when the food products include varied viscosity items, such as condiments, and when it is desirable to perform such tasks automatically.
The protruding enfitment device also interferes with a piston or bag compression type of pump for pumping the material from the bag. Further, such enfitment devices are often difficult to attach to the bag. These problems become worse when the bag contains material, such as food products, of various viscosity, such as condiments, and when it is desirable to perform such tasks automatically. In the restaurant industry, for instance, existing devices have been mostly useful in manual dispensing of condiments by customers.
In the area of rapid food preparation, especially in quick-service restaurants, a need exists to dispense controlled portions of a broad spectrum of material having uneven flow characteristics. Such materials include food products with variable viscosities, emulsions, colloidal suspensions which can coagulate or settle out with time, as well as semi-solid mixtures, such as relish, beans, meat, sour cream, cheese sauces, ketchup, or mustard. These materials must be moved or pumped in a manner in which the flowable material or product maintains its piece integrity. As an example, emulsions or suspensions must not be overworked to cause a shearing action or breaking of the emulsion.
Further difficulties arise in obtaining repeatable dispensations of a controlled amount of flowable material, especially when the temperature and viscosity of the flowable material varies over a wide range. The portion or amount of ingredient that is pumped from a flexible-walled container is usually dependent on one or more of the following: the amount of pressure, duration of pressure application, pressure-sensitive valves, exit hole size and product viscosity. For instance, if the time that the pressure is applied to the container is held constant, then the ingredient portion being dispensed will become smaller as the residual ingredient left in the bag is reduced.
Current dispensation of food products from flexible bags is achieved by transferring the food product into mechanical handheld dispensing devices or through the use of enfitments. Enfitments are attached to the bag and used to interface with a dispense hose or nozzle. Such enfitments can be either placed on the bag before loading within the device or attached within the handheld device. Each method, however, requires either additional labor to attach the enfitment to the bag or takes up space within the mechanical handheld device. In addition, manual attachment of the enfitment to the bag increases handling of the food ingredients and creates undesirable food handling risks.